Chapter Thirty Three

Time has passed for a long time. It feels like days. The horror within me has grown bigger and bigger. It's swallowing up my insides, and soon it will defeat me completely.

Then this mechanical voice comes like a hallucination. "Final psychological evaluation passed." Am I imagining things again? There is no way to know if this voice is real or just another new creation from the figments of memories. I haven't heard anything for eternity. Instead of seeing hope, I sense a deeper despair.

Another period of time has passed, and nothing is happening. Just when I'm certain that the voice is my hallucination, the world in front of me lights up. I am back into that arena where I murdered Jessica. Time is frozen into that exact frame when I raised my gun.

For the first second I can't take in so much data after all those emptiness. It's too many colors, sounds, feels, and thoughts. It's like facing the bright noon sunlight after being held in a tiny dark prison cell for ages. I can't adjust my nervous system to it. The next second I am overwhelmed with joy for being able to escape that voidness. Even if it's just one second, one millisecond, I am still going to enjoy and perceive every tiny bit of this. I want to see every tints of color and hear every vibrations of air. Then the next second comes grief. Why this scene again? This scene that I have played in my head countless times, this scene that I have blamed and tortured myself for every single second, this scene that I have kept so much regret in and can never forgive myself and live a normal life for. This scene.

Then the next second, I'm filled with puzzlement and bewilderment.

I have more control in this memory than I have in the Reader. Inside the Reader, my memory is single first person perspective. The fragments of memory plays on normal time unless the person reading chooses to fast forward it. But now, it's more like a third person perspective. I can move around in the memory. Whenever I think about a location in my head, my perspective immediately teleports there. I can also experience this memory at whatever speed I'm comfortable with.

In the memory, Roger was holding an injection syringe behind his back. He also had an EMP bomb inside his pocket that's as already detonated a few seconds ago. The images of the Higher Officials on the second story were distorted and blurred. Hologram. Jessica stared at my gun with pure calmness. If death must be the final resolution in the story if her life, then at least it fell with a few moments of love.

I pulled the trigger, and a gunshot tore the air open, but there was no blood anywhere. A shell skipped out from the chamber, but I couldn't see any bullets. Blanks. The gun was loaded with blanks.

The moment I pulled that trigger, I sank into a semi-coma. My consciousness immediately took over and post traumatic effects took place. I fell on the floor. Seeing that Jessica wasn't dead, the soldiers immediately rushed up to tie up the loose ends, but Roger got rid of them with his telekinesis.

He walked up beside me, and, seeming as though he knew I would revisit this memory, talked to me in a soft voice, "This is the final enhancement of your body that you should take. Filtration system enhancement. Skye told me about how you were affected by alcohol that day in the dance,and I realized something was off. With this, you would never be affected with the neurological medicine."

A half-dead soldier used his last bits of strength to press the lockdown button on the wall. Immediately the sirens began blaring and the heavy steel gate started dropping. Roger tossed the syringe to Jessica and rushed towards the door.

Jessica looked as confused as I am now, but her intelligent mind quickly got control of the situation. She inhaled deeply to calm herself and quickly found that vein in my neck. She pierced the syringe accurately through.

I immediately got up from the coma as my mind cleared. "Jessica, why were you here? Run!"

Instead of running, Jessica just stood there, crying and laughing tears at the same time.

I grabbed Jessica's hand and slipped under the falling metal gate. Roger then let go and trapped himself inside, probably to protect his cover identity.

As we turned a corner, two armed soldiers were coming our way. My reflex arc immediately shot up the action of firing that gun, but my brain didn't remember that the gun was filled with blanks. The two soldiers began firing in unison at my direction.

I immediately leapt behind a half opened door and saw Jessica doing the same a few meters in front of me. The soldiers began moving cautiously towards my direction, guns raised and fingers ready to fire at any moment.

I was working out a plan. Perhaps to disarm one soldier when he got close and use that gun to shoot the other. As I was still thinking, Jessica had already come up with her own plan.

She slid gracefully behind the soldier at the back as the two turned away to check the room across the hall. Swiftly drawing out the used syringe, she pointed it like a gun behind that soldier's neck. She spoke in a soft and cool voice, "Lead me to the exit." By using the word "me", she suggested it was only her escaping that room. It not only protected all of our identities but also secured the element of surprise in case I needed to strike.

The soldier was about to turn his head, but Jessica pressed the syringe harder onto his neck. His companion dared not to do anything, so they could only guide our way.

"You could never escape here," that soldier flashed a taunting smirk as he swiped the door open.

Beyond the door stood heavily fortified glass walls, and beyond that was a sea mixed with blood.